Meet the men and women who gave up their day jobs for the good life
Kate Humble meets the entrepreneurs who will never again face the Monday morning dread...
Jonathan Williams 37, Owner of the Pembrokeshire Beachfood Company Jonathan Williams was staring at his computer at his nine-to-five job in sustainable architecture when he heard the call of hiraeth. “It’s a Welsh word meaning homesickness and a longing to be back home,” he says. “After years studying, travelling and beach bumming, I found my desk job in Swindon hard-going; I wasn’t inspired. Being indoors on a particularly hot summer’s day in 2010 was the moment I decided to think up a business based on things I love – family, Pembrokeshire and the beach.” Williams loved beach taverna culture (thanks to his Greek grandfather) and decided to experiment part-time selling edible seaweed. “I’d grown up foraging for seaweed, cockling and surveying shores for friends of the family, who are marine biologists. Along the Pembrokeshire coast in the 19th century, there was a traditional industry in laverbread [an edible seaweed made into a paste], which almost died out in the 1980s, but sushi had come along and helped demystify seaweed again.” In May 2011, with a diary packed with festival bookings, he left the desk job and set up the Cafe Môr beach shack selling his signature Seashore Wraps: salmon, laverbread and Welsh cheddar; bacon, laverbread and cockles; and crab and sweet chilli, as well as Welsh sushi and rolls filled with lobster and mackerel. “By the end of the summer, I had won British Street Food Awards and the opportunity to cater for the athletes in the London Olympic Village. It was a dream first year.” A few friends considered Williams mad to give up the security of a job for an income dependent on a seasonal business. “Better to try and fail, I thought. I’m not a massive worrier but, on paper, it was an awful decision,” he admits. “I gave up a good salary, a 35-hour week and paid holiday for much less income and long working hours. I used to love being a beach bum, but I’ve gone to the other extreme, working all hours every summer!” To establish a more consistent income, Williams developed a range of delicatessen products. After travelling to Japan, he imported seaweed washers and dryers to create condiments popular in Christmas hampers: Welshman’s Caviar, Mermaid Confetti, Seaweed Pesto, Welsh Sea Black Butter, Sea Herbs and Ship’s Biscuits. “I work on product development with my mum in her kitchen. I’m guilty of launching too much stuff. For 2017, we’re working on a seaweed veggie burger and a Welsh-style bouillabaisse. Last year we introduced Kelchup, a kelp ketchup, lovely in bacon rolls, and customers also wanted it with lobster and mackerel. “I never dreamt the business would go from a one-man show to a staff of three or four in winter and up to 20 during the festival season. It’s constantly challenging. I’ve had to learn to say no. But now I never have that Sunday-night dread of going to work on Monday morning. I’m doing something I love.” Shann Jones (pictured with her husband Rich and son Benji) 50, Founder of Chuckling Goat How did a Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist and nighttime radio host from California – a regular “pay cheque girl” – end up in her late 40s selling probiotic goats’ milk products from a tiny plot of land in rural southwest Wales? Chuckling Goat, a business that started on the farmhouse table, with one cute black-and-white goat called Buddug, has experienced a 1,113 per cent growth in sales in the past 12 months, inspired two bestselling books, grown to 70 goats, ten employees and an international market of 38 countries. “The success has been like being kicked in the head by someone in really nice shoes,” says Shann Jones. “Four years ago we were flat broke. The challenge now is holding on to the tiger’s tail. It’s spinning so fast. We can’t hire and train enough people.” Jones and her husband Rich, a Welsh harp maker, woodworker and farmer, fell into entrepreneurship. Their business is a true family affair at every level, both in personnel (daughter and son-in-law are part of the team) and inspiration. Theirs is the ultimate “cloud-with-a-silverlining story”, that began all because their son, Benji, was suffering from severe eczema, and Rich, thanks to his Welsh heritage, suggested goats’ milk as a traditional healer of skin conditions. Benji, who’d been trapped in a cycle of bronchial infections treated by courses of antibiotics, drank the milk and his condition improved. Jones then heard about kefir (a probiotic drink made by adding a live culture of good bacteria to milk), which promotes gut health. She learnt that eczema, acne, dermatitis, rosacea and psoriasis are auto-immune skin conditions. “Doctors are big on killing off the bad bugs with antibiotics, but they don’t restore the good ones,” she says. “This realisation spurred me on to find a way to give people the benefits of kefir in skincare.” A more dramatic family medical issue ensued. After a surgery, Rich contracted MRSA, the antibiotic-resistant superbug. “The doctors could do nothing and I was watching my husband die. Well, that was not happening on my watch. I started doing my own research. I realised you can’t ‘fight’ an MRSA infection but you can provide good bacteria to balance out the bad.” Three times a day for three days, Jones applied kefir to his skin. “On the fourth day, he rallied. On the seventh day, he was out of bed and wanting to get back on his tractor.” Jones took a class to learn how best to incorporate her kefir into natural healing soaps and skin creams. As well as supplying fresh goats’ milk kefir to drink, she’s created a skincare range that includes Break Out Kefir Lotion; cleansers to soothe and calm; and products for sensitive skins and babies. “With Rich sick and Benji’s eczema, it’s not a path I’d have chosen to walk but… We’ve found we’re a great team. I’m the kite and he’s the control!” Will Pritchard (pictured with his wife Alex and daughter Florence) 43, Wagyu beef farmer With the crisis over falling milk prices, Will Pritchard, a third-generation dairy farmer, was looking to diversify to secure the family farm. A night out in 2011 with his friend Rob, an agri-food consultant, resulted in him introducing a couple of Wagyu bulls onto his Pembrokeshire land. “There’s lots of luscious grass in Wales and I’d been thinking of ways to use it beyond dairy. I considered grass-fed beef, but Wagyu seemed pie in the sky,” he says. “I took one bite of Wagyu steak and that was the point it all started.” What’s so special about Wagyu that makes it the most expensive steak in the world? In Japan, the cattle pull carts, and it’s the marbling of fat (the storage of energy for muscle) that gives the meat succulence. Containing a higher percentage of mono-unsaturated fats and Omega 3 and 6 fatty acids than any other beef, it scores top in health benefits. “At room temperature, the fat melts into the meat. It’s an extraordinary taste sensation,” says Pritchard. “Wagyu is considered such a delicacy in Japan that you hear stories about cows being locked in garden sheds, massaged to increase their appetite and fed beer. Ours simply get plenty of exercise in open green pastures.” To increase his herd, Pritchard looked to Australia. “We identified the best bull and had the opportunity to buy its semen.” It was a huge decision. In Australia, the semen of prize-winning bulls is controlled; it cost a record-breaking £1,500 per vial and a further £150,000 investment for the breeding programme. The fertilisation process was undertaken in Australia and the embryos shipped to Wales; Pritchard’s dairy cows acted as surrogates.Then the wait began to see if the investment would pay off. Natural Wagyu now produce about a hundred cattle annually and sell to high-class delicatessens. “I’m pretty optimistic we’re on an upward trajectory,” says Pritchard. Kate Humble: Back to the Land is on Tuesday 8.00pm BBC2
Two young British Muslims on the challenges of finding romance
Channel 4's new documentary Extremely British Muslims explores a dating scene where marriage introduction events are big business
Albela (Bella) Nabi, 25, sales assistant Finding a partner has become complicated for my generation. Young Muslim women have a bigger voice now. In older generations, parents chose the partners and girls would trust their parents. We’ve been brought up in Britain in a different way. The attitude is that this is our life, we have opinions and we need to make our own decisions. At the same time, it’s a big thing in Islam to be married young. When I’m with my family I do feel pressure. I can’t lie. I am 25 and I should have settled down by now. I’m pretty sure about what I want in a partner. In my dreams, we are best friends who fall in love. He’d propose on the Eiffel Tower and we’d get married. I want romance to build naturally and be in love when I decide to spend the rest of my life with someone. I don’t want to meet someone twice, get married and the next day pop a baby. An arranged marriage? I can’t even imagine it. No way. My mum’s amazing. She wants me to marry whoever I like. ‘It has to be your choice because it’s your life and I need you to be happy,’ she says. She knows I’m picky and stubborn. She doesn’t want the responsibility of choosing my partner and then being blamed if it didn’t work out. She wouldn’t want me to say, ‘Look what’s happened! You destroyed my life.’ Most of my friends are married or have a partner they’re marrying. A few had an arranged marriage in the sense that they met a guy they’d like to marry, so the parents met. Other couples start as friends but the guy says ‘I’m serious about this’ and comes to the parents’ house to ask for her hand. That is the custom. I’d like us to be on the same page about our faith – I’d feel more comfortable discussing family issues – so not so strict that there’s no leniency, no consideration, but not so liberal that he didn’t care. I want a happy medium. When I make a decision, I will try to please my mum and my uncles and myself. I’m lucky they are so supportive. They are open minded and pro choice, but they do say: ‘You have to get married!’ Mohammed Ashraf (Ash) Mahmood, 30, logistics consultant Dating has been about figuring myself out. I’m mixed race and marriages within my family have broadened my outlook. My mum comes from a traditional Pakistani background and my father became a Muslim when he was 19 and married her. Back then, it was taboo for a Pakistani woman to marry out of the community. My sister chose her partner, but it was slightly arranged. My brother met his missus at university. Her family are from Trinidad and Tobago and she became a Muslim once they married. Everyone is open to whoever I bring home as long as I’m happy. Mum prays for me every day. She really does just want me to get married. At the same time she knows the task at hand is great! She runs match-making evenings and when she once left her flyer in a potential missus’s house, that was a subliminal message! It’s not essential that a girl is Muslim, but it would be easier in the future with children if we got into our faith as a team. I want someone who has the will and desire to care about religion, but not the sort who thinks we’ll be banished to hell if we miss a prayer. Wearing the hijab is not an issue for me; it’s up to her. When viewers first see me in the programme, I had met a girl from a strict background and thought I might marry her so I was trying to be this religious person and that wasn’t comfortable. My friends, my family, everyone was straight with me: you’re pretending to be someone you’re not. I’d be cutting off my friends, my life, to be with someone I’d only met a couple of times. I was in denial. It is hard to find a kindred spirit. You have to be open-minded and have a laugh. I’d rather go with the flow and be myself, meet someone on my level, and we’ll better ourselves in the world together. Some friends have gone to Morocco or Pakistan to find a wife. The thought of meeting someone a couple of times in a country I don’t know well, and then marrying them? I can’t do that. It is a guaranteed way of finding a wife, but for me the last resort. I’m 30, the age that used to be my cut-off point. Now I’m saying 35… Extremely British Muslims starts tonight at 10pm on Channel 4
2 kids, 42 years old, 10,000m – Jo Pavey is Rio 2016's Olympic wonder woman
The long-distance runner reveals how a hectic family life helped her get into Rio-ready shape
Jo Pavey is proud of her towering pile of ironing. Not a stack of neatly laundry on the spare bed in the family home in Devon that still requires her attention. “Some days it’s so tall it’s ridiculous. Over the past few weeks it’s reached a personal best performance in height, but I take a sense of achievement from that,” she laughs. “It means I’ve been very busy having fun with my little boy Jacob [six] and my little girl Emily [nearly three], and training. I might not have qualified for Rio if I’d concentrated on keeping it lower!” When Pavey won the 10,000m at the European Championships in 2014 – one month short of her 41st birthday, and 11 months after the birth of her second child – she was hailed as the inspirational Mum Who Runs, though her GB teammates prefer to call her Granny. Among the many accolades that followed her gold medal, she was awarded an MBE, came third behind Lewis Hamilton and Rory McIlroy in the BBC Sports Personality of the Year and was practically renamed Jo Pavey40, as her name was scarcely mentioned without an astonished reference to her age. Now she’s in Brazil with Team GB, preparing to become the first British female track athlete to compete at five consecutive Olympic Games – an incredible feat given she is now two months shy of her 43rd birthday and her event is notoriously the toughest of runs. Covering 25 laps of the track, the 10,000m demands concentration, tactical acumen, resilience in the initial jostle for position, a radar-like awareness of who in the pack is putting in a surge that requires a response, and energy enough to burst through in a last-lap sprint to the line. In the long, relentless months of training to attain peak fitness, a regular 10k athlete will clock up 100 miles a week, focus on speed in track-specific sessions and winter abroad in warm-weather, high-altitude training camps. The work that underpins a successful 10,000m runner is an awful lot of lonely miles. Not for Jo Pavey. With her husband Gavin, who is also her coach, she organises training sessions close to home, fitted in around their children’s needs. In 2014, when Emily refused to take a bottle, Jo arranged her runs around breastfeeding and sleepless nights. Now the training schedule is peppered with play dates, school commitments, mini-sports clubs, the guinea pigs and family fun. A qualified physiotherapist herself, she has taught Gavin to do her daily massage to save her time driving to a clinic. “Since becoming a mother, my whole approach is about juggling priorities – with my kids always coming first,” she says. “As soon as I was pregnant with Jacob, I decided against going abroad for winter training camps. I want to be a full-time, hands-on mum and there’s no time now to obsess about training or to worry about trying to follow the ‘perfect athlete’ routine.” The Paveys find a lot of amusement in the domestic chaos involved in balancing the demands of a sporting life with family, as I observed while working with her on her book This Mum Runs. A cupboard inside the back door that others might use as a cloakroom is taken up with a treadmill so that she can do some of her mileage closer to Jacob and Emily. Pots and pans caked with charred food Gavin has forgotten he’s left on the cooker are put away, ready for his mother’s visits to scour them. They giggle about their mastery of the quick tidy-up – all the mess gets chucked out of sight upstairs and Gavin jestingly threatens to rugby-tackle any visitor who approaches the staircase. “One day we might have a house as immaculate as a show house, and we might get round to painting the kitchen cabinets, but for now we are happy to have a messy home,” she says. Training has been a family affair. At the Exeter Arena athletics track, Gavin will be in coach mode, stopwatch in hand, while Jacob apes the over-exaggerated steps and lunges of Jo’s warm-up routine or sprints up and down the long-jump runway, and Emily plays in the sandpit. “I find it so motivating that we can keep fit as a family,” she says of their routine runs along the Grand Western Canal or in Haldon Forest. “It makes training so much more enjoyable. Jacob goes on his bike and Emily goes in the running buggy or on the back of Gav’s bike.” The car is loaded with kids’ bike helmets, hats, drinks, coats, picnic fare, in-car amusements. The last time I called them, Gavin answered the mobile from the top of the car. He was fixing roof rails to carry a boat. Pavey explains her longevity in the sport in terms of the pleasure she takes from family life. “Becoming a mum helped me rediscover the simple passion and love for running I had as a child. The happiness it gives me, and the better balance in my life, has psychologically benefited my running immensely.” On the surface, the happy-go-lucky approach is endearing, but it wouldn’t work were it not for Pavey’s sheer determination. Known in athletic circles as the personification of gutsiness, she has shrugged off all sorts of adversity and injury in order to carry her fifth allocation of Team GB Olympic kit on to the plane for Rio. In mid-spring this year, a chest infection cost her five weeks of training. The timing was cruel. Failing to make the qualifying standard for the 10,000m at the Olympic trials in Birmingham in June, she toiled away trying to regain fitness, and resorted to flying to Boston alone to enter the only ratified event left on the calendar in which she could set a time that could lead to selection. Arriving in Massachusetts to find the 10,000m event had been cancelled, she ran the 5,000m instead and secured a time that enabled her to defend her European championship title in Amsterdam. Instead of “racing” that race, however, she had to stick to a plan of set lap times that would earn her a ticket to Rio. A classic teeth-gritted Pavey push saw her finish in a time that was inside the Olympic qualifying standard by more than 40 seconds. Even then, she had to wait to find out if the GB selectors would award her the final British 10,000m place. “On the day that we were due to be informed it was quite late and I still hadn’t heard,” she recalls. “I was down at the track and on this occasion Gav and the kids weren’t there as I didn’t want Jacob to miss his swimming club. I was pushing myself to the limit, thinking, ‘I’m not sure I’d be pushing this hard if I’m not going to the Olympics!’ “When I’d finished the session there were lots of missed calls on my mobile phone from Gav, who had been informed of my selection. I felt so thrilled I’d made it in the end. It means so much to me to be able to run in a fifth Olympics. “After all the hard training and the ups and downs, I feel so fortunate to again have this very special opportunity of competing for my country at a Games.” She intends to savour every moment of what will surely be her last Olympics: “When I stand on the start line, I’ll look up at the flame and remember how fortunate I am to be there. When the gun goes off, I’ll give it absolutely everything.” It means a reappraisal of family logistics. “At a normal meet, I can stay in the same hotel as Gav, Jacob and Emily. It involves so much packing! It’s not as simple as just remembering my running kit, like it used to be, but I get to eat with them and put them to bed. “If I have to stay in team accommodation, then we make plans to meet up each day. I want these trips to be enjoyable for the children. When I competed in the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, I didn’t want them to stay in the city. Gav took them to a holiday park by the beach and I took the train out each day to see them.” However, concerns about the Zika virus have led the Paveys reluctantly to decide that Gavin and the kids won’t travel to Brazil. “When I was first targeting qualification for Rio, we presumed that if I did qualify we’d all go, but I don’t feel happy taking a young family out there, especially with there being a lot of unknowns regarding neurological conditions,” she says. “It will be tough, but I’ll be happier knowing they’re OK.” The women's 10,000m is on Friday 12th August, 3.10pm
Charlie Dimmock returns to telly in Garden Rescue
Charlie Dimmock is back on TV. There she is, mid-makeover on an exposed garden plot, tipping up a wheelbarrow full of mud, squidging down the earth around a newly planted shrub, swooshing her distinctively wayward hair off her face with the crook of her elbow, throwing back her head in hearty laughter before shooting a theatrical thumbs-up to camera. Gone are the trademark denim shorts and skimpy vest of her pin-up years in favour of jeans, an over shirt and waterproof walking boots (number one choice on lists of things she can’t live without). On screen, her presence is so familiar, so full of joshing and easy-going banter, that it seems incredible to think it’s been 11 years since her last primetime appearance on Ground Force. She still radiates the same practical personability that had her spotted as a TV natural at 26 when, as a garden-centre manager in Hampshire, she built a pond for Grass Roots, shown on Meridian (in ITV’s southern region). Off-screen, too, she arrives for an interview emanating genuine warmth and unflappability. The question is: Charlie Dimmock, where have you been all these years? “People think that if you’re suddenly not on telly, you’ve stopped working. That doesn’t happen, because we all have mortgages to pay,” she laughs. “I had been on TV a very long time [1997 to 2005], but I had always been doing other things. Ground Force ran its course. It was of its time. It was good fun, very enjoyable, and it had its run.” Dimmock’s TV CV stops abruptly in 2005 bar another year or two presenting River Walks for Meridian, but her name pops up promoting bee-keeping and allotments, gardening for children and ponds for therapy, even campaigning against “dangerous” pond plants. Her TV break was unexpected and, in going back to her pre-Ground Force life, you get a sense that she has always taken things as they come and let life unfold organically. Who would have thought a role in a touring stage show of Calendar Girls would lead to her becoming a pantomime fixture as the Fairy Godmother and a green-fingered Fairy Organic? “I’ve been busy. At the end of the day I do have a real job. I’m a gardener. I do garden design. I’ve been doing a lot of work with dementia homes, at flower shows, giving demonstrations, working on cruises. I’ve been pootling around doing quite a lot of things.” Just a few months before the last episode of Ground Force aired, Dimmock lost her mother and stepfather in the Asian Boxing Day tsunami of 2004. It is not something she has ever spoken about, but in her continued absence from our screens, there was a feeling that she had made a purposeful withdrawal from public life to come to terms with her loss. “No, no, that’s not true at all,” she insists. “Ground Force just finished. It had been a long time doing gardens in the same format. The budget on the programme was actually quite small and there’s only so much you can do... with gravel.” That is classic Dimmock. Back to business, with humour. And the subject under discussion is Garden Rescue, the new BBC1 daytime series she presents with Chelsea Gold Medal-winning brothers David and Harry Rich. Conjuring garden transformations on a budget to a brief, her role seems a natural next step: a fairy godmother poised to pull off a few Cinderella turns in a mock rivalry with two wickedly handsome brothers. The twist of the show is the competition between Charlie, who creates one design (“vague and water-coloury”), and the boys, who present a slick, computer- generated image. “Our designs looked vastly different, which caused some funny moments when we did the pitch, but overall it’s more garden inspiration than rescue,” she reasons. “What I have enjoyed is going along to meet the families. On Ground Force, we surprised people by transforming their garden while they were absent, but it was lovely getting to know the clients. There was the couple whose twins arrived prematurely – they were due after we’d been there filming – and they were both so with-it, although they looked tired, with cocktail sticks holding open their eyes!” The 20 garden projects posed unique challenges, from the family who wanted a trampoline for a daughter who needed to do physio without it feeling like physio (Dimmock suggested an in-ground trampoline, which, once removed, could be turned into a pond) to a couple who had lost their son and wanted to re-embrace the garden their children had grown up in. One client was a keen photographer and wanted a wildlife garden to attract bees, birds and butterflies; another couple were excited about creating a garden of their own after years of living in Army quarters. All her proposals centre on a contagious love of plants and an eye for a design feature that can evolve. To this end, in refurbishing her own house a few years ago, she included a structure that will enable her to install a lift for her old age. “I also had all the toilets put at a higher level because I hate those plastic things that go over the seat!” In tandem with Changing Rooms, Ground Force pioneered the home improvement genre. It established Alan Titchmarsh as the man who brought decking to the masses, Tommy Walsh as the cheeky chappie “celebrity builder” and Dimmock as “horticultural viagra”, given her penchant for going bra-less under a vest top. At its peak, Ground Force attracted 12 million viewers, which for Dimmock translated into enormous popularity and a passionate fanbase who sent her mail, not to mention hundreds of hair scrunchies, and bought her official calendar with such fervour it outsold one featuring Caprice, the lingerie model du jour. Approaching her 50th birthday next month, Dimmock swats away any reference to her bra-less days as if the whole business were a pesky fly. “All that was all so silly and a long time ago,” she says. Being a woman comfortable in her own skin, she shrugged off the fuss at the time, explaining it was a comfort thing, that a bra is restrictive when you’re doing seriously physical work. She has long been resigned to the recurrent references to her pin-up days since a chat about her nickname with Esther Rantzen who said, “I was always referred to as the ‘buck-toothed presenter’ and I had my teeth fixed years ago!” Is she ready to face the inevitable scrutiny that is one of the drawbacks of regaining a higher public profile? “Move along, move along, I’ll say! Look at the boys, they’re much more attractive. On this series I can be a grumpy old cow or, as they termed me ‘the dragon’ – but I hope with love in their voice.”
Steve Backshall and Helen Glover must be Britain's fittest couple – but who's tougher?
She's the world's best rower, he's TV's action man. Together, they talk training regimes, their competitive spirit and the hardest things they've ever done
Steve Backshall thrives on close encounters with dangerous predators. The intrepid naturalist is back with a new series that sees him tangle with carnivorous reptiles, swim with deadly electric eels, even handle a bullet ant whose sting delivers pain like a gunshot. “An ant that has the power to make a grown man cry... that’s very, very special,” he rhapsodises, as others might coo over a fluffy chick. When not testing his wits against the animal kingdom’s most lethal weapons, the toughest man on TV can be found honing his fitness. And boy, is he fit: his achievements include running the gruelling Marathon des Sables, the equivalent of five-and-a-half marathons, in the Sahara. As a climber, he specialises in first ascents up the world’s most daunting mountains. He finished in the top ten of the UK Tough Guy event. Oh, and he’s a martial arts black belt. Backshall is 43 on 21st April, yet his life still revolves around the words “extreme” and “challenge” – even in the domestic sphere. The woman he shares a home with, fiancée Helen Glover, 29, is the world’s top-ranked female rower. His own training regime follows his mantra of “the wilder the better” – yet her approach to fitness leaves him gasping for breath. And she doesn’t like to lose... How competitive are you with each other? STEVE Very. With the Olympics in Rio in August, time at home is for Hels to get her zip back after what must be the most intense training any athlete goes through. We sit around trying to beat each other at word puzzles or board games. Or we go in the garden and play boules or badminton, and that does get serious. HELEN I’m always the one who’s more disappointed when I lose. We both know that. Whenever Steve wins, he looks at me carefully to see how annoyed I am. What about domestic chores? HELEN I have to admit Steve does most. STEVE There’s one little word there... HELEN OK, he does all of it! I would have cereal for dinner and then run out of the door with an apple for breakfast. Steve’s very good. He makes me a smoothie and cooks a great dinner. When you have a break, how do you relax? HELEN We do sport together. We play tennis. We do swimming races across the river, paddle-boarding, kayaking, climbing, mountain biking, cycling... STEVE And we do training sessions together. The problem is that they become competitive as well. Who can hold an abs crunch the longest? Unfortunately she wins all those too. The irritating thing is that Helen is a phenomenal all-round athlete. After the London Olympics in 2012, she competed in Superstars and wiped the floor with the rest of them. I’m introducing her to activities like climbing – and the first time she goes, she’s better than I am, and that’s ever so slightly galling. There is no activity I can steer her away from to maintain my superiority. HELEN Kayaking? You were quite pleased with your kayaking... I’m racking my brain. You’re better at word games? STEVE That’s so cruel. HELEN You can beat me in a wrestle. Any form of martial arts, I don’t stand a chance. STEVE Oh yes. We do have a wrestle every now and again, and I have yet to lose at that. How do you maintain fitness? STEVE When I’m on the road filming, I have a small kit I take everywhere – a skipping rope, suspension trainer and abs roller. That means I can do a 45-minute session no matter where I am – on an icebreaker in the Antarctic, on tropical beaches, in the rainforest. If I don’t exercise, I’m a grump. HELEN I start training at 7.30am, with a two-hour session, rowing with Heather [Stanning, her pairs partner]. After a second breakfast, we do another session on the water, or sometimes on the rowing machine. At this time of year we start race practice – three sets of two kilometres each. After lunch, we finish with weights: lifts, squats, bench press and bench pulls. By the time I’m home and showered, it’s time for dinner, and then bed about 9pm. STEVE I didn’t know anything about rowing when I met Helen [at a Sport Relief event in 2014], so I’ve been desperately trying to get up to speed. I tried the ergo [ergometer, or rowing machine] on the sly. I’ve never experienced pain like it. The horrifying thing was admitting it to her and telling her my time. Her line was, “That’s not too bad, that’s what some of the junior girls get.” What's the toughest thing you've ever done? STEVE Big mountaineering expeditions involve long periods of not eating or sleeping, at very high altitudes. Your body goes into decline, to the point of utter collapse. Climbing Kedarnath Dome in the Indian Himalaya, I lost ten kilos. We did a huge summit push and by the end I couldn’t walk a couple of paces without collapsing. HELEN The physically toughest is the summer camp, the last push before an Olympic Games or world championships. We do a three-session day, with the last session being two hours on the rowing machine, and then you have to be back on the water at 7.30am doing flat-out pieces over 5k. That’s a three-week camp. One day alone is tough, and then you wake up and repeat it. Mentally, the toughest is sitting on the start line, knowing that races are won by the person who’s happiest to leave themselves in the most pain for the longest. Is there anything about training that you hate? HELEN The rowing machine. It’s boring. I listen to music. I showed Steve my playlist and he couldn’t listen because it’s so cheesy. STEVE Cotton Eye Joe by the Rednex! How could you listen to it? For me, time for training is so hard to come by, every second is treasure. It’s my time to empty my head. It’s almost meditation. Is there anything that you can do that the other can't? HELEN I’m fine with the snakes, spiders and birds of prey he’s asked me to handle, but I couldn’t go into caves not knowing the way out. STEVE The ergo sessions. I managed 5k and I was dying. That’s her warm-up. She’ll do 24k on the rowing machine. The thought makes me feel violently ill. What are your partner's strengths and weaknesses? HELEN Steve is so mentally tough, his skill level is almost irrelevant. His ability to push himself beyond normal limits is a big attribute because on an expedition you have to push on through, no matter what happens. His weaknesses are his knees and ankles, the legacy of bad falls. If push came to shove they might slow him down. STEVE Helen’s main strength is that she’s a unique athlete. She’s officially the best rower in the world and she’s also one of the smallest, so she’s combating leviathan girls a foot taller than she is, through her phenomenal abilities, driven by what I would say is her weakness... that enough is never enough. She can row a personal best and I’ll be, YES! And she’ll say, “No, it’s terrible.” She will be cross for not having gone a couple of seconds faster. She feels her competitors’ breath on her neck even when she’s beating them by lengths in the boat. She never has a sense of satisfaction. So, who is the tougher of the two? Steve concedes it’s Helen. “Nobody can underestimate what she goes through on a day-to-day basis,” he says. “She does three training sessions seven days a week – each of which would knock a very, very fit person sideways. The fact she can even stay awake is a miracle.” RT photographer Mark Harrison delivered a more straightforward verdict after putting the couple through their paces. “She’s fine. He’s not,” he said, looking at the pictures. “He’s too smiley.” Helen wins. Steve Backshall's new series Fierce begins tonight at 8pm on ITV
The Boat Race: It’s the coxes who make the big calls
The cox is tactician, navigator, psychologist and cheerleader
To spectators, The Boat Race seems the purest of sporting contests – two crews busting a gut for glory. On the water, however, as microphones demonstrated last year when they picked up the obscenities emanating from Oxford cox Oskar Zorrilla, this is a head-to-head rivalry of gladiatorial ferocity. At 5.55pm on Sunday, the 160th Boat Race will see Cambridge challenge last year’s winners Oxford over four miles, 374 yards (6.8km) on a turbid incoming flood tide – the same conditions every year, hence the changing start time – on the stretch of the River Thames from Putney to Mortlake. The scoreboard stands at 81 wins for the light blues (Cambridge) to 77 for the dark blues. Television viewers are expected to peak at around 4.5 million. Large towpath crowds will create a tunnel of partisan noise. The stage is set, and one thing is certain. The spotlight will fall on two men: the coxes. Ian Middleton, aged 18, in the Cambridge boat and his opposite number Laurence Harvey, 20, weigh in at only 8st 6lb and 8st 8lb respectively, but their responsibility is heavy. They are the small men making the big calls. Each must act as tactician, navigator, psychologist and cheerleader. And the cox can make the difference between winning and losing. Middleton, the youngest man by some margin in this year’s race, is tasked with calling the shots to a Cambridge engine comprising eight power- houses whose average height is 6ft 6in, weight 14st 7lb and age 24 years. “Coming directly from school to university, it did take time to adjust from coxing guys my age to guys older than me,” he admits. “But through the winter training I’ve got used to it. It’s these long months of selection and crew formation that build up the relationship.” Unlike straight-lane 2,000m world championship lakes, the Tideway produces changing conditions over its meandering course. “Steering the line in order to put your crew in the best possible position with another crew alongside is a very different challenge,” Middleton says. “If the boats come close together, you have to hit the correct balance of pushing to be in the stream but also being in your own water. If you’re in your own water, then you need the confidence to hold your line. “On top of steering, there are the tactics – what to do when the opposition make their big move, when to push to stay in the race or to break clear. These calls need to be quick and decisive as the race can change in a short space of time.” The job requires a cool head and self-assurance, qualities both coxes can claim. Last year Harvey coxed Oxford reserve boat Isis to a canny win over Cambridge’s Goldie; Middleton takes confidence from steering his Abingdon School first VIII to victory last year in the National Schools Regatta and the Princess Elizabeth Challenge Cup at Henley. “In the end we’ve got to make sure that we deal with any situations that occur on the river to the best of our ability,” he says. Too right. British Eurosport (Sun 5.30pm) and 5 Live Sports Extra (5.55pm) also have coverage of the Boat Race Picture from left to right: Oxford Stroke Constantine Louloudis, Oxford Cox Laurence Harvey, Cambridge Cox Ian Middleton and Cambridge Stroke Henry Hoffstot Follow @RadioTimes
Formula One's greatest ever driver - or a boring obsessive who's killing the sport? Sarah Edworthy asks friends and foes...
You have to feel sorry for Sebastian Vettel. At the age of 26, the poor chap has won four consecutive Formula One world drivers’ titles, accrued a host of world records featuring the phrase “youngest ever”, and dominated a field that has included five other world champions – the likes of Michael Schumacher, Fernando Alonso, Kimi Raikkonen, Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button, no less. And yet Vettel’s supremacy has branded him both one of the greatest in the sport, on a par with Juan Mañuel Fangio and Alain Prost, and – deep yawn – a dull automaton who has killed all interest in it. Last year, F1’s annual global television ratings plummeted by 10 per cent to 450 million as Vettel won 13 of the 19 races, including all the last nine. No hiccups or controversies. No down- to-the-wire finale. Nothing to get viewers jumping off the sofa. When Vettel celebrated on the podium in Canada, Belgium and Singapore, the victor met with boos from the crowd. It was too much of a Seb-fest, too much an exhibition of sublime racecraft. On the eve of the new season, a long-time grand prix correspondent listed “Sebastian Vettel losing” as his number one hope for 2014. “After all,” he wrote, “it has been about eight months since anything but the German’s silly single digit has been waved.” “Tall poppy syndrome” is nothing new in sport but, in Vettel’s case, the criticism directed at the result of his domination – unexciting races and a lack of human drama – seems to have transferred to the man himself. Unfairly so. Dull? Vettel? He is far more 3D than the exultant finger-wagger of the caricature. Compared with most elite sportsmen, he is Renaissance man. This is a young man from Heppenheim, Germany, who is also fluent in French and English, who won over his Red Bull mechanics by talking to them in cockney rhyming slang. He loves Monty Python and, inspired by American Second World War bomber pilots, prefers to consider his cars as sexy personalities rather than machines, naming them accordingly. He has quite a harem now, with Julie, Kate, Kate’s Dirty Sister, Luscious Liz and the world championship-winning Randy Mandy (2010), Kinky Kylie (2011), Abbey (2012) and Hungry Heidi (2013). His 2014 model is called Suzie. As luck (and conspiracy theorists) would have it, the F1 Strategy Group introduced radical new regulations in response to the TV ratings dip, which promise to make this season the most unpredictable for years and sustain the tension right to the last race. With all teams starting from scratch on the design of their 2014 cars, it was Vettel’s Red Bull team who headlined pre- season testing reports with dramatic struggles to overcome reliability and engine issues. In the season-opener in Melbourne, Vettel duly qualified an unlucky 13th on the starting grid and retired forlornly after five laps. Zero points. So far so good for those who wish to see him tested to the hilt in the defence of his title. Even better, his team-mate Daniel Ricciardo took second place behind race winner Nico Rosberg before being disqualified for breaching fuel rules. On the cards now is another sharp team rivalry (Vettel and previous team-mate Mark Webber had an infamously strained relationship). The forthcoming 18 races will be a test of mettle – and it’s time to see facets of Vettel’s personality beyond the ruthless racer. “He’s the brightest racing driver I’ve ever met,” says Simon Arron of Motorsport magazine. “He is utterly intense on track, but away from it there’s so much more to him that people realise.” Vettel is the third of four children born to Norbert, a carpenter, and Heike, a housewife. He has two older sisters: Melanie, a dental technician, and Stefanie, a physiotherapist for disabled children, and a younger brother, Fabian. Sebastian’s childhood heroes were the three Michaels – Schumacher, Jordan and Jackson. He is a Beatles fan, scouring vintage music shops for vinyl. Two months ago he became a father when his partner Hanna Prater, whom he has known since childhood, gave birth to their daughter, Emilie. Vettel began karting at the age of three on a 60cc go-kart around the back yard. To spice things up, his father poured water on the improvised racetrack. At the age of eight his speed and ability were spotted by Gerhard Noack, a talent scout who had also spotted Schumacher. “Right from day one, Sebastian was one of those people on the team who gets there first and is the last to leave,” Noack recalls. “He always wants to know ever detail of technical aspects.” That hunger extends beyond F1. In 2011, Vettel became obsessed with tic-tac, the hand signals used by British bookmakers at race meetings. Arron recalls talking about him to Red Bull team principal Christian Horner at Suzuka for the Japanese Grand Prix. “Christian was just saying, ‘He’s an information sponge, particularly for anything quirky’, when Vettel wandered by. Horner called him over, fired a series of odds in his direction (5-2,33-1,9-4) and Vettel’s arms went into overdrive.” What sets him apart form his peers is an extraordinary intellectual processing power. As Arron describes it, Vettel is all eyes and antennae. When, for example, the engineers have kept information back so as not to distract him during a race (for instance when the team has switched his team-mate to a different tyre strategy), Vettel will come on the radio within a couple of laps, asking about the lap times on the alternative compound, because he’s spotted the different tyre sidewall stripe via the trackside screens. In a world of big egos, though, he is resolutely unstarry. He negotiates his own deals, walks around without an entourage and likes to consider himself “one of the guys”. In Texas last year, prior to the Austin Grand Prix, Vettel and another team-member dropped in at an unassuming diner for a burger. By chance, F1 circuit commentator Bob Constanduros was eating there. Neither greeted the other. Yet a few weeks later, Vettel sidled p to Constanduros and, as Constanduros recalls, “He said, ‘That wasn’t a bad place, was it?’ He’s a humble, down-to-earth guy.” See Formula One: Malaysian Grand Prix Sunday 8:00am, BBC1, 8:30am Radio 5 Live Qualifying session Saturday 7am BBC1 (repeated at 1.15pm) and 7.55am 5 Live Sports Extra Grand Prix live on Sunday at 8am (race starts 9am) BBC1 (repeated at 1.45pm) and 8.30am on 5 Live Sky Sports F1 also has live coverage of both qualifying and the race Follow @RadioTimes
Cyclist Chris Froome on the Tour de France, Lance Armstrong and Sports Personality of the Year 2013
He “absolutely smashed” the Tour de France – but what do we know about Chris Froome? Sarah Edworthy gets to know the champ…
At 9:33pm on 21 July, Chris Froome linked arms with his Sky teammates and crossed the finish line on a floodlit Champs Elysées to become the second British champion of the Tour de France and the first rider born in Africa to take home the coveted yellow jersey – a sequined maillot jaune to boot, in honour of the 100th edition of the race. It had taken Froome 83 hours, 56 minutes and 40 seconds to reach Paris after 21 days of gruelling racing over 2,115 miles. He won four individual stages, including a stunning mountaintop victory on the unforgiving Mont Ventoux, after which he required oxygen. And he “absolutely smashed” the race despite an allergy to the latex in his cycling kit that causes his skin to erupt in red welts even in training. “If he’s itching all day, he just carries on. When he sets his mind on something, nothing is going to stop him,” says his fiancée Michelle Cound. Few people know about his allergy, or that he has to manage bilharzia, a parasitic disease he caught on a childhood fishing trip in Kenya, or that his favourite hobby is spear fishing. Froome, 28, may be the fourth cyclist in six years to be shortlisted for the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award, but he’s the least known. Whereas Chris Hoy, Mark Cavendish and Bradley Wiggins – who won the title in 2008, 2011 and 2012 respectively – came to the fore as Olympic track cyclists in front of high- decibel partisan velodrome crowds, Froome grew up BMX-racing on the dirt roads of Kenya’s Rift Valley and did not move to Europe as a road racer until he was in his early 20s. When Wiggins was growing up as a Mod on a Kilburn council estate, Froome was enjoying adventures such as being chased up a tree by a hippopotamus. “My upbringing gave me independence and the confidence to make my own decisions at an unusually young age,” he acknowledges, briefly back at home in Monaco after a whirlwind post-Tour period. It also makes him a curious version of an “innocent abroad”. The BBC’s SPOTY awards ceremony is a much-loved annual sportsfest (this year is the 60th), but it is “completely new” to Froome. “I attended last year’s show and I’ve seen the last few editions, but I’m actually going back now and looking at its history and I’m amazed to see what a big event it is.” Straight up, he says, Andy Murray would have his vote – “His achievement, winning Wimbledon, required a huge amount of dedication and rigorous training. I can only respect what Andy’s gone through to get to where he has” – and he describes his own nomination on the shortlist of contenders as an accolade in itself. “It’s the first time I’ve ever been singled out individually, but I think the fact I’m even being considered for an award shows how far cycling has come in the UK. It’s fantastic that people recognise how hard winning the Tour de France is and that, even though a British rider has won two years in a row, it’s not something that comes by easily.” On a bike, Froome races with panache and aggression. “Inside him there is an absolute iron will to win,” says his team boss Dave Brailsford. Out of the saddle, he has a Christopher Robin-ish demeanour: quiet, cheerful, modest and unerringly polite. This has led to his personality being considered “vanilla” to Wiggins’s more complex “Rocky Road with sprinkles on top”. They have had a prickly relationship as teammates. Comparisons have been inevitable since Froome finished an easy second to Wiggins in the 2012 Tour, matched his breakthrough win this year, and now follows him as a SPOTY contender. “I don’t feel I’m in Bradley’s shadow at all,” he says robustly. “We’re very different people. We come from different backgrounds. We’re very different athletes. We have different goals. I’m never going to be the first Brit to win the Tour, but I’m happy to be the second and achieve my lifetime goal.” He’s such an unassuming, likeable chap, and has overcome so many setbacks (the bilharzia, the death of his mother, to whom he dedicated his 2013 Tour victory, shortly before his Grand Tour debut in 2008), that an interviewer feels bad suggesting anything that seems to detract from his achievement. I find myself suggesting that even if Wiggins is hailed as the first British man to win the Tour, “Froomey” will always be in the record books as the rider who won the centenary edition. “I hadn’t thought of that, but I don’t think one trumps the other,” he laughs. Froome was born in Nairobi, to his Kenyan- born mother Jane (whose parents had emigrated from Tetbury, Gloucestershire, to run a crop farm) and English father, Clive, who once played hockey for England at under-19 level. He has had a British passport since birth, and always said he didn’t want to take a legitimate Kenyan’s place on the Kenyan cycling team, but his African accent always prompts the question about his nationality – even in Kenya, where he spent much of November visiting family and friends. “People were saying, ‘You grew up here, but you’re racing under the British flag. How does that work? Surely you’re Kenyan?’ And my answer is very simple. I’m definitely not Kenyan. You only have to look at me to see I’m not Kenyan. I have British ancestry. I am simply a Brit who was born in Kenya and had a different upbringing from many British kids, but it doesn’t change the fact of who I am. My parents brought me up with British traits – table manners were always really important, small things like that.” As a role model, he prefers to think his success can inspire youngsters in two nations. For Froome – the first Tour de France winner since Lance Armstrong’s admission to doping – this meant a parallel mission to show that his sport has now changed, that his yellow jersey is one that will stand the test of time. What does he think of the disgraced American’s current media offensive to overturn his life ban? “I certainly think he should be banned for life – if nothing else, to make an example to other people who break the rules. Cycling has done a complete turn since his era of racing, and [doping] is not going to be accepted on any level in this day and age.” As for SPOTY, there’s no doubt Froome will be clocking up more appearances. Cycling insiders are convinced he’ll win multiple Tour titles. He confirms he’s already training for 2014. “My number one goal is to try to achieve a back-to-back victory. Physically, I am capable of doing it. Mentally, I’m up for it. The team has given me the backing. I just have to get myself back in shape again and find some kind of form. If I can do that, then I stand a pretty good chance of taking it on again.” Sports Personality of the Year, Sunday at 7:15pm, on BBC1 Follow @RadioTimes
"There’s a lot riding on Wimbledon, but I’m better equipped to deal with the pressures and understand how I need to play matches"
Novak Djokovic is through to the next round. Roger Federer cruises on, surrendering only 11 games in two matches. Rafa Nadal faces back-to-back matches thanks to rain delays. It is day four of the French Open and, in Paris, the tennis world is abuzz with its snakes-and-ladders business of grand slam progression, upset, ranking points, prize money and glory. Where is Andy Murray? The world number two – far removed from his rivals’ locker-room banter – is walking a pair of border terriers on Ockham Common in Surrey. Having withdrawn from the French Open due to a back injury – dashing his ambition of making a fourth consecutive grand slam final – the 26-year-old Scot cuts an incongruous figure in a padded jacket, jeans and wellies, an ordinary young man spending time with girlfriend Kim Sears and their dogs, Maggie May and Rusty. In tune with the dynamic of a Murray five-set nail-biter, one minute it’s a relaxed stroll along the path, and the next he’s disappearing at speed into the heather – dodging sleepy adders and ground-nesting birds – pursuing a runaway dog. “I love walking the dogs,” he says, once we are back in his Regency-style home-cum-fitness HQ in Oxshott, sitting in a super-tidy dining room dominated by a huge portrait of a beseeching terrier’s face. (Kim is an animal artist with her own business, Brushes and Paws.) “I grew up around my grandparents’ retrievers and labradors,” he continues. “My parents both worked, so after school my brother and I would go round to Gran and Granpa’s house and they always had two dogs, a boy and a girl. It’s great that Kim and I are able to have two of them, too. Kim takes them out in the morning and when I’m back from training we go out again.” The dogs are a symbol of downtime, of a happy domestic life, and also a safe outlet through which this private, unassuming couple can project personality on their own terms. Maggie May has a twitter account [@maggiemay_hem] on which she exchanges tweets with Djokovic’s poodle, Pierre, and posts pictures such as the snap of her sitting atop the postbox in Dunblane that was painted gold in honour of Murray’s Olympic success. She once slyly expressed competitive dismay at how much attention the Duchess of Cambridge’s spaniel receives. In private, it is clear Murray is a warm-hearted individual with a great sense of humour. As the nation came to realise in those two bouts of affecting tears on Centre Court last summer – the emotional outpouring after losing to Roger Federer in the Wimbledon final and the tears of joy and relief, only weeks later, when he beat the Swiss player for Olympic glory – Murray is not so much aloof and surly as extremely focused, driven and hugely mindful of the emotions of all those who support his hunger for success. Relaxation, beyond an athlete’s normal “rest and recovery” programme, barely features in his schedule. “When I’m travelling, I play fantasy sports because I spend so much time in hotel rooms,” he says. “And I’ll watch any sport on the TV. Before I hurt my back, I’d occasionally enjoy go-karting, or play golf and football. On flights, I go through box sets. Sherlock – that’s the best series I’ve seen for a while. Benedict Cumberbatch is SO good. I tried the US version, Elementary, but it’s just not the same. For me, Sherlock Holmes is Benedict Cumberbatch. He’s unbelievable…” Back in his world of training drills and ice baths, what seems most unbelievable to Murray is that the positive momentum that began with the Olympic gold medal, continued with his first grand slam title at the US Open, and took him to another final against Djokovic at the Australian Open, has been stalled by injury. As he concedes, expectation has never been higher. He will tread the grass of SW19 not just as the British number one, but as the world number two, Olympic and US Open champion. Surely this could be the year that Murray becomes the first British man to win Wimbledon since Fred Perry in 1936? The back injury is a recurring niggle, exacerbated by the different demands made by clay-court play. Might there even be an advantage in missing the French Open if he arrives at Wimbledon without carrying that niggle? “Missing the French Open was really hard. I haven’t missed a slam for six years. All my training goes into being ready for the slams, but you have to try to find a positive,” he says, sounding disconsolate. “I’ll be short of match practice, but hopefully I’ll have had more time on the grass courts and have a bit of a headstart…” The hiatus has made him even more determined in his rehabilitation work. He’s added Pilates to his routine, working on machines such as the Reformer and Cadillac, which use springs as resistance. “I work in a small class. I’ve done big-group classes, Bikram yoga and so on, but I find Pilates helps me the most because the work can be tailored day by day.” The body is one thing, the mind another. In the psychological warfare that is top tennis, negativity is the enemy. Those who have known Murray for years note how he has become much happier in his skin. Some credit the taciturn presence of coach Ivan Lendl. Some put it down to the maturing of a young man who burst onto the scene as a scruffy teenager when he won the US Junior Open in 2004 at the age of 17. He has certainly always done things the hard way, but, in terms of the “monkeys on the back” that sports psychologists talk about, Murray has rid himself of two: first, by returning to Centre Court so soon after his Wimbledon final defeat and emerging the Olympic champion, and second, by joining the elite club of grand slam winners after beating Djokovic at New York’s Flushing Meadow. After losing four previous grand slam finals, Murray proved in 2012 that he is capable of performing when it matters. “I was struggling after I’d lost at Wimbledon. It was one of the toughest matches for me to lose,” he says. Immediately after the trophy ceremony, he spoke with Lendl in the locker room. “Not about the match, more about the way I’d handled the situation and the pressure. He was really happy with how I’d dealt with all of that.” Murray has never sat down to analyse a replay of the match. “I haven’t watched any of it. It would be a tough one for me,” he admits, though he hasn’t been able to avoid images of the championship point saved, then another lost to deny him his dream – “because, at tournaments throughout the year, they show replays of who won the last slams…” Some players like watching their matches, some don’t, he explains. It sounds as if he’s in the latter camp. “The guys I work with watch a lot of my matches and see the things I need to work on. I played seven matches at Wimbledon, not just the final, so there will have been certain things I did well throughout the whole event and there will be other things I didn’t do so well. We go through feedback about the tournament, or even the grass-court season as a whole, as soon as we get back on the practice courts.” The night before Murray stepped back onto a practice court after Wimbledon 2012 he dreamt he was holding the men’s singles trophy above his head in victory. “Three or four days afterwards, I woke up thinking I’d won Wimbledon. When I realised I hadn’t, that set me back again, but once I was back on the practice court I started to feel better. Something had changed. Those two weeks before the Olympics were the best I’ve ever played in practice. That was the first time that I responded really well after a painful loss.” Looking ahead to the fortnight of strawberries and cream, he says, “There’s a lot riding on Wimbledon, but I’m better equipped to deal with the pressures and understand how I need to play matches when I get to the latter stages of the big events. The US Open win has eased pressure on myself, definitely, because winning a grand slam was the aim behind every practice session I have ever put myself through.” Wimbledon for Murray is Groundhog Day. Every year he finds himself repeating the same answer again and again to the same question: could this be your year? “I deal with it as best I can, knowing that I’ve played some of my best tennis at Wimbledon over the course of my career,” he says. “It’s the build-up that’s difficult. People follow me everywhere and there are more strains on my time. Once the tournament starts, it’s great. I try to manage my energy well and fit in the extra commitments around training, practice and rest. “I love playing in front of the home crowd. I want to draw upon the incredible atmosphere I experienced at the Olympics. That bubble of a positive atmosphere brought out the best in athletes. And of course it’s nice to come home every night and sleep in my own bed, and have friends and family around.” One uncertainty is whether or not his loyal and chatty grandparents will be there to cheer him on. When I tell him I have enjoyed the occasional cup of tea with his grandmother, Shirley, up in the Competitors’ Facilities terrace, he rather sweetly explains that that may not happen this year because she’s recovering from a broken hip. “She was doing the bed and tripped on the electric blanket,” he explains. “I called her before she went into surgery and asked, why in this day and age, she was still using an electric blanket and she said, ‘It’s not me, it’s your grandfather!’” Queen’s Club is the first test for Murray, and on to Wimbledon. Given Murray’s membership of the tennis elite’s Fab Four, his anticipation suggests quiet confidence. “When the grand slams come round, people like to put question marks next to the top people. He’s struggled here, his form has dipped there, but by the end of the French Open I bet you’ll see Rafa and Novak in the semi-finals [he was right]. You expect the top players to play well at the slams.” To that the nation’s chorus is: “We do, Andy, we do” – confident he’ll be doing his damnedest to achieve the ultimate dream. Andy Murray – The Man behind the Racquet, is showing on Sunday, 10:25pm, BBC1
Why Wimbledon is Andy Murray’s Groundhog Day
Every year Andy faces the question ‘Could this be your year’, but he says it’s the home crowd that’ll help him achieve his goal
Wimbledon for Andy Murray is Groundhog Day. Every year he finds himself repeating the same answer again and again to the same question: could this be your year? How does he deal with that? “I deal with it as best I can, knowing that I’ve played some of my best tennis at Wimbledon over the course of my career,” he says. “It’s the build-up that’s difficult. People follow me everywhere and there are more strains on my time. Once the tournament starts, it’s great. I try to manage my energy well and fit in the extra commitments around training, practice and rest," Murray says in an interview in this week's Radio Times magazine. What seems most unbelievable to Murray is that the positive momentum that began with the Olympic gold medal, continued with his first grand slam title at the US Open, and took him to another final against Djokovic at the Australian Open, has been stalled by injury. As he concedes, expectation has never been higher. He will tread the grass of SW19 not just as the British number one, but as the world number two, Olympic and US Open champion. Surely this could be the year that Murray becomes the first British man to win Wimbledon since Fred Perry in 1936? The night before Murray stepped back onto a practice court after Wimbledon 2012 he dreamt he was holding the men’s singles trophy above his head in victory. “Three or four days afterwards, I woke up thinking I’d won Wimbledon. When I realised I hadn’t, that set me back again, but once I was back on the practice court I started to feel better. Something had changed. Those two weeks before the Olympics were the best I’ve ever played in practice. That was the first time that I responded really well after a painful loss. “I was struggling after I’d lost at Wimbledon. It was one of the toughest matches for me to lose,” he says. Immediately after the trophy ceremony, he spoke with Lendl in the locker room. “Not about the match, more about the way I’d handled the situation and the pressure. He was really happy with how I’d dealt with all of that.” “I love playing in front of the home crowd. I want to draw upon the incredible atmosphere I experienced at the Olympics. That bubble of a positive atmosphere brought out the best in athletes. And of course it’s nice to come home every night and sleep in my own bed, and have friends and family around.” To that the nation’s chorus is: “We do, Andy, we do” – confident he’ll be doing his damnedest to achieve the ultimate dream. See Andy Murray: The Man Behind The Racquet Sunday, 10.25pm, BBC1 and read Andy Murray's full interview with Sarah Edworthy in this week's Radio Times magazine - on sale tomorrow.